Denver Rogue
by jainga
Summary: They were just there so JD could help them with a computer problem. No need to worry right? ATF Sentinel xover rated for slight language
1. Chapter 1

All characters from The Sentinel belong to Pet Fly All characters from The Sentinel belong to Pet Fly

The Magnificent 7 belong to CBS, MGM, The Trilogy Entertainment Group, and The Mirisch Corp.

I intend to reference the virtual seasons of The Sentinel found at www (dot) blackpantherproductions (dot) org / index (dot) htm

* * *

Buck eyed JD as the kid bounced his chair into a fully upright position and grabbed the phone.

Huh… He never answers the phone that fast, not even when he's expecting a call from Casey. He eyed his roommate suspiciously when the kid grinned a touch maniacally. He shared a quick amused glance with Vin, the only other person in the room. Josiah and Nathan were out, and Ezra hadn't made it to work yet. The southerner seemed to think that getting up before ten was a sin.

"That's great, send 'em up." The kid was bouncing…again. He was starting to think that he had been gypped. His computer chair sure as hell didn't have that much spring to it.

"Hey kid! What's up?"

"Wha'? Huh?"

Buck waited until JD actually focused on him before repeating, "What's up? Your more restless than a jitterbug, kid. Somethin' big happen'n or do I need to get Nate t' tell me what yer on?"

"Buck! You know I don't do drugs!"

"Yeah, yeah, calm down kid, I know, and thank God for it. Ah hell kid! It already takes six of us t' keep up wit' ya'. But if'n ya don't tell me what's got ya so wound up this time I'm gonna tell Nate about tha' blister a' yours."

"Aw Buck, the blister's fine. It's just a little burn; it'll heal in no time. As for what's going on… I have a client!"

Buck and Vin both burst out laughing. "A what? You goin' inta business for ya'self now kid? Gonna' give up all'a this?" His expansive gesture took in the slightly abused office that ATF Tactical Team 7 used as their home base.

"'Course not! But there's a couple of cops coming up with what sounds like a real dozy of a comp problem. Apparently some hacker has managed to shut down the entire PD's system. And it was recommended that they come consult with yours truly." Buck and Vin snickered as JD struck a self-important pose before grinning at them.

"Down? The entire system? Why haven't we heard a' this? They cain't get inta our system cain they JD?" Vin sounded concerned as he stopped by their desks, coffee cup in hand. "I don' think anyone wants me ta ha'f ta write out reports."

"Have a little faith in my firewalls will ya' Vin? And they're not from the Denver PD. They're out of a city up north; Cascade up in Washington. Sounds nice huh? Peaceful like. I bet their days never get as crazy as ours can be."

* * *

Detective Jim Ellison leaned against the back of the elevator eyeing the people around him as they entered or exited at each floor. Beside him his partner Blair Sandburg…well, jiggled…in place. "Why are we here again Chief?"

The head of curly hair turned to him revealing the amused blue of his Guide's gaze. "Um, let's see…it could have something to do with the death glares you've been giving your reports. Or it could be because of Simon shoving his computer monitor off his desk last week. But personally I think it's because Rhonda threatened to quit if we didn't get the problem fixed soon."

"Yeah Chief, I know Ben hopes Agent Dunne can fix the computers, but why are WE here? Why didn't he just mail that damn disk? Why do we have to walk it all the way over here."

"Jim, you can hardly call taking a plane and a taxi walking. Besides there's information about our system that he'll need to know, and we were going to be in Denver anyway. It's the nearest major airport to the conference in Colorado Springs. You're just edgy because you're out of your territory."

Jim didn't correct his misconception. He wasn't edgy because HE was out of his territory, but because SANDBURG was out of his territory.

"Yeah, I know Darwin. And keep it down will ya? It's just that every time we're off on our own things get weird. I don't want us getting caught up in one of their cases. Simon'll never let us out of the office again if we get injured on this trip."

"Will you relax big guy?" Blair asked as the doors opened on the eleventh floor and they stepped out. "They're a federal agency. I think they can handle their own cases with out help from us. Anyway we're in the Federal Building, and we're only going to be here long enough to drop off the disk and explain the situation to Agent Dunne. What could possibly happen in that amount of time?"

Huh first chapter finished… I hope the rest of this story goes as well, maybe then I can get back to my other stuff. R&R I seem to write faster if I have feedback.


	2. Chapter 2

See I told you I write faster if I get reviews

See I told you I write faster if I get reviews!

Just under a week and you guys get another chapter.

AN: I can't believe I forgot to thank MOG on the first chapter for her wonderful imagination and foresight to drag the guys of mag7 into the modern world. Thanks MOG!!

And I forgot whom to thank for Ryan Kelly and Team 8, but I'll probably be using them too. If I come across your name later I'll put it up.

Also got a challenge for anyone who wants to try it. – Write an entire mag7 story from team 8's point of view. The action should center on team 7, but it should all be seen from the eyes of team 8. Good luck to anyone who decides to try it.

* * *

Jim stuck his head into the room and glanced around the mostly empty confines. In deference to this meeting he had worn a white button up shirt. It put him several steps above Sandburg, who considered business attire to be a non-offensive T-shirt, buttoning the cuffs of his flannel over-shirt, and his pair of least wholly jeans. "Agent John Dunne?"

A young man swiveled his chair around to face the door. He had on two T-shirts and a leather paperboy hat sat perched on top of his desktop tower. "That's me. You the detectives from Cascade?"

"That's us." Jim confirmed stepping fully into the room.

After which Blair whispered delightedly, obviously intending to be overheard as he knew exactly how softly he could whisper and still have Jim hear him, "Dude! Look Jim, he's younger than me."

Jim and Buck flinched recognizing a sore spot, but JD just returned in like manner, "Dude Buck! Look, he's shorter than me!"

The two men stared at each other bland faced; an accomplishment neither of their partners would have accredited them with had they not been watching, for the space of two heartbeats. Then JD's lip quirked up on the right side and Blair's curved into a poorly suppressed smile. Not even Jim could tell which one began the snickering but in a few seconds both of them were hunched over chuckling and grinning like idiots. He rolled his eyes and shared a commiserating look with the older agent, Buck, he assumed. It was a look men often shared about kids. And sometimes about small yappy dogs that thought they could conquer the world…if only they had opposable thumbs.

Then Blair was around him, hand extended to the younger man. "Blair Sandburg."

"JD Dunne, I only make the FBI call me Agent Dunne."

"Well that's better than anything their local office calls Jim and me."

It set off another round of snickers as they shook hands.

JD sent a quick look at Buck that seemed to say_ they hate the FBI too! I think I like 'em! _"Heard you guys had a big computer problem."

"Oh no! We don't have a big computer problem. We have a small budget and a big secretarial problem. We can't replace all the computers and the administrative staff is about to riot. Otherwise I'm sure that the ruling bureaucracy would leave us to rot in the hell that is true paperwork, and damn the consequences to the forests and subsequently to the worlds Oxygen supply." Blair glanced around as he caught his breath, noting the lanky longhaired man in one doorway and the modern blond incarnation of Darth Vader who lounged in another. Everyone appeared to be staring at him. He looked to Jim, "What?"

Jim shook his head and indolently reached over and thwacked Blair in the back of the head, "Only you, Chief."

But he was smiling as he did it, and saw the answering grin that Blair threw his way as he let the hand connect.

"Wow…"JD appeared at a slight loss for words. It didn't last long. "Blair you just really reminded me of one of our other teammates. I mean, the content was different, but the wording…Hey Buck, do you think-"

"NO!" The word burst from two mouths at the same time. Buck's, who had half-risen from his seat in preparation of either fleeing or strangling the younger agent. Even he didn't know which just that the thought should never be spoken where he could hear it. And the large, black-clad man in the office doorway that currently stood stiff and glared at his youngest agent.

"JD." Buck continued in a more somber tone. "The thought of being in the same room with both of them two positively gives me the _willies_." This was punctuated by a compulsive shudder as the large man sank back into his seat.

JD grinned at his theatrics. "Speaking of our other teammates let me introduce everyone here. Buck Wilmington, communications and explosives expert." The seated man smiled and nodded to them as he kicked back farther in his chair.

"Chris Larabee, team leader." The man in black crossed over to shake hands with both Blair and Jim.

"And the long-haired Texan is-"

"Capt. Ellison an' I have met b'for." Tanner drawled from his doorway.

This caused Ellison to frown as he tried to place the slender man with shoulder length hair. It was the eyes that finally catapulted him back nearly ten years.

To the Army gun-range and a gawky teenaged Private that fumbled loading his sidearm, but could shoot the eye out of a pigeon at thirty paces. "Tanner? Looks like you finally got used to carryin' a gun."

"Yeah well, where I's from they weren't never used fer good. You's the first one t' show me tha' they's just a tool."

"Tanner and I used to meet up at the gun-range at Fort Huachuca in Arizona two or three times a week. Junior, here had a hell of an eye, but didn't trust his gun.

"That was…oh, a month or so, before I shipped out to Peru." He added for Blair's benefit. "How the hell'd you end up with the ATF, Tanner?"

"I wouldn' want ta' distract ya' from yer computer problem." Said in a tone that implied he'd rather do the exact opposite of what his mouth was saying.

"Well, truthfully…"

Jim sent a pleading look to Blair who rolled his eyes and physically shooed Jim over to Tanner. "Go Jim, you'll be no use to us, and the 'compu-ese' will just give you a headache anyway."

His actions gained him the Ellison glare number 14. Sandburg grinned as he silently translated it, _I'm glad you're acceding to my request, but couldn't you have done it in a more dignified way?_

Jim let out an exasperated breath and followed Tanner to his desk as Larabee retreated to his office and Blair and JD began attempting to decipher just what had been done to the Cascade PD's computer system.

"Okay so here's the background. About five weeks ago Ben and I up graded the department's firewalls. Three days later someone hacked the system anyway. It looked like it was just a smash and grab job. They got through the walls and got a bunch of non-specific information. Radio frequencies, cell phone numbers, and the payroll lists for some of the departments. All of that information could be made moot fairly easily: we changed radio frequencies and cell phone numbers, the guys on the payroll lists were warned to change their account numbers at their bank.

"Ben and I didn't have time to go over what else could have been done because both us and our partners went under just a few days after the hack. Turns out we were, obliquely, working the same case. Took nearly four weeks to crack it and bring our guys in. We'd been back, maybe, two hours when the system went down." JD was sitting Indian style in his chair while Blair leaned against the front of his desk, bouncing one leg and gesturing wildly as he gave the details.

JD leaned forward, his eyes intense as he considered the problem. "How did it go down: did the computer screens get fuzzy, was there a color change, flickering, any kind of warning at all?"

"Oh, we got a warning all right! Damn warning that shutting down our computer now would cause us to lose all unsaved data came up about twenty seconds before all the screens went black…I mean all of them. At first we just thought it was just major crimes, but then Ben and Danny, his partner, came barging in from narcotics to see if we had gotten our reports on the bust printed off before everything went down. That's when it hit that someone had just shut the PD down cold.

"Ben and I tried to reboot one of the computers, and the thing got to loading the operating system and then just shut off again. We tried replacing the hard drive, but apparently some form of the virus or worm or…whatever it is…lurks in some other memory: we think it's in the video card, but it could be in the memory sticks attached to the motherboard. Because with the new hard drive we got the computer to boot up, but it only lasted for about ten minutes. Then the screen flickered, the warning came up, and the computer shut down."

"Damn," JD sounded impressed. "The _entire_ PD? And it's still down?"

"We're running off of laptops down in forensics, and dispatch is working out of one of our surveillance vans. The rest of us are filling out forms in longhand." Blair confirmed.

"Damn…" JD paused to consider the scope of the problem. "Did you bring the hard drive you removed with you?"

"Yeah, it's in my backpack down at the security desk. They wouldn't let me bring it in. How does that work anyway? They let me bring my gun, but not my backpack…"

"Well, you're a cop, and you had to show a permit for your gun." JD was already reaching for the phone to call down and have someone bring up the pack.

"So…do all those school kids out there know they need a permit to carry their backpacks around?" Blair mused out loud.

His eyes danced at the absurdity of it. Yes he knew very well that there could be explosives in a backpack. But they trusted him to bring a gun into the federal building…and not his backpack. The backpack that they made him leave on the ground floor _in _the federal building…Didn't it sound like it just might cause more damage there, than if it were nearly at the top of the building? Obviously security didn't take physics or structural integrity into account when they were devising procedures. Really the Oklahoma City bombing should have taught them something…

"Blair? Blair! Focus please. The guy on the phone mentioned a disk?"

"Oh, yeah. Sorry. It's the disk we made following the hack. Everything that was changed or accessed should be logged on here, but there's no guarantee that it's got a copy of the original infection. That's why we practically gutted one of the computers. Everything out of it that could carry some memory and store the bug are in my backpack." Blair rubbed his eyes attempting to pull his attention back to one topic.

"Well it's on its way up with another of our teammates." JD told him. "Should be here in a few. 'Till then let's see what you caught on the disk." JD picked up the innocuous CD from the edge of his desk where Blair had set it during his explanation and reached to insert it into the computer drive. But Buck grabbed his wrist halting him midway to his destination.

"Now hold on there kid. Whatever might be on there could have taken down the entire network for the Cascade PD right? So, maybe ya' jus' might wanta hold off an' look at it from a computer tha's not hooked inta the federal network."

"Aww, Buck, that means waiting until my laptop's hooked up!" JD could sound remarkably like at rug-rat when he wanted to.

"Don't worry about it JD. Jim and I have to get over to Colorado Springs anyway. We're due for a conference on negotiation techniques. We'll take off as soon as I can get the other stuff out of my pack."

"Ah assume that you are referring to this disreputable parcel that Mr. Dunne connived me into delivering." A slow southern drawl interrupted from the door.

"I didn't con ya' Ez; I asked…Politely even."

"An' therein lies the con, Mr. Dunne."

* * *

Jim looked up in concern. As soon as the Southerner had spoken Blair's heart rate had jumped and he had gone perfectly still; something he never did without good cause. Jim was already moving across the room when his partner managed to squeak out, "Ezzie?"

Blair finally turned to look at the tall well-groomed agent in an impeccable four-piece suit that stood just inside the room dangling Blair's (admittedly disreputable) backpack from the end of his thumb. He managed to miss the looks that were flickering between the other agents at the speed of light. JD's eyebrows had disappeared into his bangs as he shot a look over to Buck. Buck, himself looked as if he just might fall to his knees in worship of the ground Blair was standing on. And Tanner was choking on the last of his coffee.

"Blair, as you are no longer four-years-old Ah do wish that you would stop using that undignified appellation in which to address me."

"Ezzie, it is you!" And like a guided missile Blair was around the desk and giving the wide-eyed, shocked man a hug.

"Ah…ye-, yes Blair, of ah…of course it's me. Ah must request that you release me from this ignominious restraint. Now."

"I take it back, Kid! I am so glad I'm in the th' room with both of 'em. Ya' couldn't pay me t' miss this!" Buck finally choked out between compulsive chuckles. JD just sat nodding his head in agreement. Jim finally heard Vin lose the battle with his own laughter, dissolving into something very akin to giggles behind him. Ez, as JD had called him, just appeared mortified.

"C'mon Chief. Grab some dignity for a change, will ya'?" Jim couldn't help it. The Southerner looked so put out, but Blair was so happy that it was contagious. Even the well-dressed man had a smile flirting with the edges of his lips even as he stared down in abject horror at the longhaired, flannel clad, neo-hippie, witchdoctor punk that clung to him. Pretty soon he and JD were joining in the revelry at "Ez's" expense.

"Oh, Jim! Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim! Come meet my cousin, Ezzie!" Blair bounced around so that he was standing beside the older man, somehow while retaining his grip on the poor man's left arm.

"Ezra, or Agent Standish, as you please. An' Ahm afraid that Mr. Sandburg and myself are not quite so close a relation as he has led you gentlemen to believe." Era stood, still hanging the backpack from one hand, as he glared out of the corner of his eye at Blair who held his other hand captive.

Blair, who just bounced once and waved away Ezra's objection as inconsequential. "Second cousins, once removed. Or is it first cousins, twice removed? Naomi and Maude are cousins. I haven't seen, Ezzie here, since I was sixteen and started school at Rainer."

As generalized and uninformative as that statement had been, it actually explained a great deal to the men that knew either of the two ladies mentioned.

"Chief, I thought you spent your childhood globe-trotting. When'd you meet up with Ezra?"

"Yeah Ez! I thought you spent all your time at fancy shmancy boarding schools!" Buck chipped in.

"Jim!! You know Naomi would never take me somewhere unsafe! She always spent a week or so at each commune before she'd let me near the place. Since pretty much the entire family is struck with something of a wanderlust there's usually only one or two relatives that are…stationary at any given time. I'd end up with 'um every time Naomi was between permanent addresses and Ezzie'd end up there whenever his mom was between…umm…"

"Ah believe the term you are seeking is conjugal partners, Blairy." Ezra stepped in, caustically over emphasizing the childish derivative of Blair's name.

"_Blairy_?" Blair questioned in disgust. "That doesn't even make sense as a nickname _Ezzie_. It's harder to say than Blair."

Jim shook his head as the two of them continued to bicker like children. At least Blair finally relieved his cousin of the backpack. Although there was now a roadblock in the doorway as everyone threw questions out at rapid-fire speeds. Jim was about to intervene and extract his guide from the mess when something caught his attention. He wasn't sure what it was, but something he was hearing didn't belong with the rest of the city sounds held at bay by the walls and windows of the Federal Building.

Instantly he began doing as Blair had taught him early in their acquaintance. He catalogued all the sounds that he recognized and then blocked them out. He was about to dismiss the sounds of a NEWS helicopter when something about it stopped him. It didn't remind him of car chases or hostage situations when there'd been both NEWS and police choppers circling. It reminded him of Army bases and an aborted attempt to take his team deep into the jungles of Peru.

"Jim, man. You okay?" Jim opened his eyes when Sandburg grabbed onto his arm watching him worriedly.

"It's a Huey." Jim finally identified the displaced noise. It took a few moments to block the noise from the blades and zero in on the noise form inside the military transport.

"_Remember the eleventh and twelfth floors only. MacGillan will not be pleased if we're not on target. Keep it below 80 rounds a minute. We don't want to run out before the second pass. Ready?"_

_Thunk, clink clink, rattle. Click. _Machine gun, Jim's rattled brain informed him. They just snapped the ammo belt into place.

"_Roger, let's go shoot some fish in a barrel."_ Oh…Shit!

Jim was running on instinct and fear at this point. Step one? Get his partner down. "Sandburg! Cover!"

Suiting actions to the words he proceeded to tackle the smaller man. It worked better than he expected. Blair, reacting on other human instincts tried to grab a hold of anything that could keep him up. In this case, Vin Tanner and Ezra Standish, causing Jim, and gravity, to pull them all to the floor. Buck reacted as any trained officer would to the warning in Jim's tone. He jumped his partner and pulled the kid to the floor with him. The windows drowned out his yell to Chris as they began exploding inward.

* * *

Well there you go. I can't promise that the next chapter will be out as fast as this one was, but I have already started it so it should come out soon.

Also I have no idea if the computer problem plaguing the Cascade PD is actually feesible or not. I have a Bio degree not a Comp Sci one. So if anyone is good with computers and thinks this can be done...PLEASE DON'T TRY IT!! That would be bad.


	3. Chapter 3

I would like to thank crism1976 and sfulton229 for being excellent reviewers

I would like to thank crism1976 and sfulton229 for being excellent reviewers. There are a few others that have reviewed both chapters, but these reviews stand out. Love ya guys!

I amuse me…there have been a couple of you who have stated in reviews that you wished my chapters were longer. My first thought after reading them was _I'm never gonna be one of those writers that can put out a 10 – 15 page chapter. I just don't seem to work like that. _Then I wrote this one…at 14 and a half pages…

Please don't get used to it. I can't guarantee that it will ever happen again.

Warning: There is what I consider mild language in this chapter. I hope I don't offend anyone.

* * *

It's amazing how seconds could seem like hours when you were pinned on the floor listening to things around you get pelted with large metal projectiles. He sincerely hoped Jim had turned his hearing down. He could hear desks being scooted across the floor by the force of whatever was hitting them, and the computers were not faring well. Probably not the walls either. It didn't help that the water sprinkler system had been set off and everything in the room was getting drenched.

Side mounted .50 Caliber machine gun. It had to be, to cause this much damage, and to fire off rounds so quickly. He'd never had to deal with the one in Kuwait…Thank God. But how do you stop a monster like that. It was pretty much a guarantee that they didn't have any anti-aircraft missiles in the Denver federal building. But then…Blair's mind flicked through all the memories he had of being up close to the only Huey he'd ever actually seen. Paused on the mid-air refueling spout. That could work…It'd take Jim's aim, but it could work.

With his own ears still ringing, and the sounds of large bullets still entering the building in the office next to team seven's, he reached up and tapped Jim's right ear. Signaling him to dial that sense back up some.

"Hang on Chief, they're going to circle back and hit the twelfth floor too."

Blair could barely hear him over the ringing in his ears, but he tried to talk back at something under a shout for Jim's sake. Actually it was probably a good thing that Jim would be the only one who could hear him.

"Good! You said it was a Huey. Jim, the Huey has a straight line for refueling. If you can put a bullet down it, then you should be able to ignite the gas fumes. That'll set the oil on fire. Eight to ten seconds and the whole thing will go up. Can you get to the roof?"

As the world suddenly went deathly quiet Jim made eye contact with him and nodded once. He pushed himself up off the dog-pile and ran for the emergency exit.

Blair rolled off of Ezra just as two large men came barreling through the open doorway.

"Sweet and merciful God."

"Holy sh-"

"Brother, I do believe you're skills are needed."

Blair listened to the rapport between the two as he waited for his head to realize that he had stopped moving. The wailing fire alarm was not helping. Blair quickly catalogued his symptoms: blurry vision, left hand trembling slightly (that couldn't be good), ringing in his ears (though that could be the sirens), and a large, PAINFUL, knot forming on the back of his head. Yep. It was official. He had _another_ concussion.

Jim was going to be grumpy.

Simon was going to be furious.

Somehow, they'd blame it on him.

He finally managed to gain his feet. And glanced around at the destruction of what had previously been a functional office. The place was wrecked. Two-inch holes dotted the walls every few centimeters in a line about waist high. The desks were perforated. The computer systems trashed. Paper and drywall dust were being blown around by the winds that whipped around the tops of the buildings. The scene should only have been in a documentary of the civil war of some third world country, not the heart of Denver, Colorado.

"Sir. Sir? Are you alright?" Blair focused intently on the dark blur he assumed to be a man.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Sandburg waved him away. There were certainly people in worse shape than he was. A quick search revealed that Ezra was supporting one wrist and JD had a brace on his ankle. The brace appeared to have come from the oversized duffel bag that was currently sitting at his feet as the black man muttered something about the definition of the word fine changing for anyone who stepped through the office door.

JD, by the door with an ankle brace. Buck hovering over him. Ezra standing a few feet away, holding his injured wrist. Two men he hadn't been introduced to, but who seemed to know everybody else. Moaning and screaming coming from across the hall…Where's Vin?

"Nathan get over here. Chris is hurt." Oh there he was. How he got across the room and into the team leader's office was a bit beyond Blair's thinking at the moment, but hey he could blame that on the concussion. And apparently the black man with the duffel bag had some medical skill, which was a bonus. Nathan and Vin both disappeared into the office.

"Buck, you okay?" Blair asked

"Yeah, 'm fine kid. No worries"

_Fwoomph_

Blair closed his eyes and held his breath before the concussion blast could wrap around the open windows to burn them and rattle his teeth. The force had the building swaying slightly which didn't help his stomach much.

"What the Hell?"

Blair looked over as Chris Larabee was escorted from his office. It looked like Nathan had bandaged around a large piece of glass that was lodged in his upper leg.

"Jim just took down that helicopter." Blair told them with a somewhat embarrassed shrug. Then smiled triumphantly to himself, "I knew he could make that shot."

Chris sent a narrowed-eyed look to Tanner who nodded minutely in response.

"Buck, get the kid down stairs. Vin, you take Chris. I've got to see what I can do for everybody else on this floor." Nathan shifted Larabee's weight as he spoke and extracted himself to get his medical kit from the office.

"Team 8's out. Ow! Hell Buck quit pullin'. The Delaney stakeout." JD informed them while fending off Wilmington. "Teams 5 and 6 sound like they could use help."

"We should also check the floors above and below. Make sure there weren't any strays that hit someone else." Blair's head was throbbing, and his vision still slightly blurry, but they needed to make sure that the paramedics knew exactly where they were needed.

"The tenth floor is fine, Brother. Brother Nathan and I just came from there. Some of the windows were cracked, but nobody was injured. They were already evacuating when we headed up this way."

The big man that spoke would have been intimidating if Blair hadn't spent so much time with Simon Banks. The mountain of a Captain had a few inches and probably a good twenty pounds on the burly man in front of him.

"I only know basic first aid." Blair informed them. "Won't be much help down here. I'll head up to twelve and make sure everybody from there is out."

"Josiah, go with Sandburg." Chris sounded remarkably calm given the situation.

"Certainly, Brother Larabee."

"There's no need, Jim'll meet me on twelve." Wow. That glare was almost as good as the Ellison glare number 4 aka _Just do what I say!_ Good thing Blair knew how to combat it. He stared at Larabee with a wide-eyed guileless face for a few seconds while the injured man's glare turned a touch darker. Then smiled and shrugged, "But if you insist. Shall we…Josiah?"

* * *

Blair was wrong. Jim didn't meet them on the twelfth floor. He met them on the landing between the eleventh and twelfth floors. He gave Sandburg a thorough once over, lips tightening at the pain he saw in the blue eyes, but momentarily let it go when his roommate rolled those same eyes at him. Blair gave quick introductions as they took the last steps to the twelfth floor fire door.

"We just wanted to make sure that all of the people up here had evacuated." Sandburg explained as they opened the door and headed into the empty corridor.

"They mostly have been." Jim said. "There's just a couple of people left at the other end of the building. I was going to go check on them when I heard you guys on the stairs below me."

Josiah looked like he was about to ask a question when a mid-forties woman came hurrying out of an office at the other end of the hall. Her pantsuit was rumpled and not holding up to the water, some thick strands of dark auburn hair had escaped from her usually perfect bun, and she had removed her shoes at some point, but she moved forward with a purposeful stride. One that halted when she saw the three men headed her way.

"Oh thank God, Mr. Josiah! Orin's trapped. One of those damned bookshelves fell on him and now we can't get his leg free." She performed a near military about-face and headed back in the other direction without pausing in her diatribe. "He told me to get out of the building, as if that man ever hired anyone who could leave the injured behind. I tried the phones, but I suppose they've all been shut down. With the fire sprinklers goin' I guess they don't want anyone bein' electrocuted."

Even as she spoke the lights shut off. There was a few seconds of quiet darkness before the emergency backup systems kicked in bathing the outer office where they stood in a dim glow.

"It's alright Ms. Lisa." Josiah rumbled "We'll get th' Judge, an' then we can all get out."

"How bad is his leg, do you know?" Jim's medic training urged him to ask. Truthfully even if they thought the leg was fine there were a few basic precautions that should be taken.

"Oh, I wouldn't even know where to start guessing. It's a big bookshelf, with a lot of law books and procedural manuscripts on it. It's got him pinned pretty good. I wouldn't be surprised if that leg was broken." She glanced to the open door across the room as she spoke.

"Okay, I need you to get me some packing tape…You know the kind they use to secure boxes for shipping?" At her nod he continued, "and a couple of magazines, nothing thick, but with some heft to it. Can you do that?"

She stood for a moment. Posture and expression indicating she was rapidly identifying and discarding options. Then she nodded to herself and moved to open the bottom drawer of her desk. Blair was just behind her getting instructions on where to look for the magazines.

Josiah Sanchez was already through the Assistant Director's door and crouched over the fallen man protecting him from the downpour of water.

"Well Judge, got yourself in a bit of a quandary this time haven't you?"

"Sanchez, what the hell happened? It sounded like Nam out there for a minute." The older man rasped from his prone position.

"It would seem, Brother Travis, that someone with access to an Iroquois helicopter became annoyed with the eleventh floor of this building." The large man told him.

"Josiah, are you saying that the eleventh floor of the Denver Federal Building was just attacked by a Huey?"

"Yes, sir, Brother. That does seem to be the case."

"Just the eleventh floor?"

"It would appear that this bookshelf is the only damage accrued by either the tenth or twelfth floors, while it is a miracle that anyone on the eleventh survived the attack."

"Figures."

"You know, you're supposed to bolt these shelves to the wall." Jim said as he maneuvered around the shelf and examined where it had fallen from.

"Never liked it there. Kept meaning to move it." AD Travis told him.

"Well, looks like you've got your chance." Jim studied the problem as Blair and the secretary came in carrying the supplies he'd asked for.

The shelving unit had his left leg caught mid-way between the ankle and the knee. And looked like it had made a valiant attempt to hold the right one as well if the tears in that pant leg were anything to go by. The shelves themselves were made of a sturdy Oak and probably weighed a couple of hundred pounds without books. Which of course was no longer an issue because all of the books would be under the 'damn' thing along with the AD's foot.

"Jim, guys, if you're done chatting, do you think we could get the evil bookshelf off of the nice man so we can all get the hell out of the tower of terror?" Sandburg rarely used a whip or a carrot if sarcasm would get better results.

Between Jim and Josiah they managed to lift the shelf the few inches needed for Blair to pull the older man out from underneath it.

It didn't take long for Jim to secure the man's lower leg by taping an issue of Cosmo around it and wrapping Travis's arm over his own shoulder. Then the five of them were headed for the staircase. Hopefully the ambulances and the EMT's were already onsite.

* * *

In short order, Sandburg found himself seated on the back bumper of an ambulance, his personal mother hen hovering anxiously.

"Chief, if you knew you had a concussion, why were you running all over hell and back?"

The tone may have been peeved, slightly annoyed even, but the fingers that probed the back of his head were gentle. And despite that, it still hurt. Yes, the brain bruising had reached the stage where he felt justified in wishing somebody would just shoot him in the head to relieve the pressure. He could practically feel his brain swelling. Sound hurt. Light hurt. And in spite of that, he couldn't close his eyes for longer than it took to blink. He'd tried. It just made him fall over. Jim had told him that if he tried it again then he wasn't going to get caught.

Blair actually considered it. After all he might just knock himself unconscious when he hit the pavement. But, then he'd miss all the fun.

"M' fine, Nate. It's just m' ribs, an' they been hurt b'for. Ain't no need for me t' go t' no hospital." Vin was putting up a courageous fight. Too bad it didn't seem to be working.

"And just when did you get a medical degree, Tanner? No, scratch that! At this point I'd settle for anything more than basic first aid training. Those ribs could be broken! And IF they're broken, then God only knows what they're poking. The last thing we need is for you to be hospitalized for internal bleeding!" The medic seemed to be winning.

"Tanner!" The voice ground out from between the clenched teeth of Team 7's leader. He was behind Blair somewhere in the ambulance. The EMT's were sure it was going to take some very minor surgery to remove the glass and debris from Chris's leg without causing further damage. "Get your stubborn Texas butt in this ambulance before I have Josiah hog-tie ya' and drag ya' behind it. If I have to go, so do you. And I prefer ta keep ya' where I c'n see ya'"

"Indeed, Mr. Tanner. It hardly seems apropos to be making such a commotion when one considers our current predicament. Given the abundant number of our colleagues injured there is hardly anywhere any of us are going except to the hospital. The least you could do is spare us the additional suffering of your vociferous quibbling." Ezra was sitting on the other side of the bumper with his left arm in a sling. The paramedics had managed to reset his shoulder, but the forearm was definitely broken.

Blair turned to blink blearily at his cousin. Even HE was having trouble sorting through that statement. At least it had shocked the area silent as everyone tried to figure out what had just been said.

"Huh?" Kudos to Buck for asking what everyone else was thinking.

"He SAID, Shut up and get in the ambulance Vin!" JD translated from his prostrate position in the back of Buck's truck.

"Sounded a mite diff'rent when he said it." Vin complained.

"Ah assure you Mr. Tanner, the intent was analogous."

"Ezra, shut up." Blair grinned at the paramedic that came around the side of the ambulance. "We've done all we can for you here. Nathan, what's the roster look like? How many of you are injured?"

"There's just four of us hurt this time, Ben. Mr. Sandburg makes five. None of us seem seriously impaired."

"Oh boy." Blair muttered "He's on a first name basis with the paramedics? That's not real comforting guys."

"Five's too many to fit in the ambulance." Ben told them, smirking at the curly-haired man holding his head and grimacing.

"Of course not. You take Chris and Vin. JD can ride in with Buck, and if Detective Ellison will let Ezra and Josiah ride with him and Sandburg then I can stay and help out here."

"Oh hell no Nathan! The staff at Four Corners 'll revolt if they have to explain prescriptions to this lot without you there to run interference."

Nathan rolled his eyes heavenward in a bid for patience. "Very well. Josiah and I will follow the rest of you in. And you better not give them any trouble before we get there!"

"There'll be no trouble at all Nathan. Just give me a moment to scrounge up a police escort and for your guys to get their cars, then we'll be on our way." Ben grinned as he shooed Blair and Ezra off the bumper.

"A police escort is hardly necessary Ben." Nathan objected.

"Nathan," Ben returned in amusement. "I just got off the radio with the Chief of Staff over at Four Corners Medical. He wants team 7, and guests," He nodded to Blair and Jim, "in and OUT of his hospital before the critically wounded start showing up. So we get an escort. Now get a move on it people!"

Jim was still smiling as he shepherded Blair and Ezra into the rental car. Oh was Simon going to love hearing about this one.

* * *

Between the reporters and the detritus that goes hand-in-hand with this sort of crime scene, both here and at the park where the helicopter went down, it was going to take them awhile to get to the hospital. Blair sat hunched in the passenger seat, with Ezra buckled in the middle position of the back seat of the rental where there was no shoulder strap to bother his sling. Jim was following right behind the ambulance with Buck's '57 behind him. He could see Josiah's sun-faded gray Suburban and the final police car in his side view mirrors. Content that he would know if anything happened to the convoy Jim turned his attention to interrogating his partner.

"So Chief, just how is it YOU know how to take down a Huey?" Jim held his voice to the tenor that said this is just an off-hand question of no real importance. He hoped it would be enough to get an answer out of his partner.

"Huh? Oh, one of the guys in Kuwait flew one." Blair was focused on keeping his head from bouncing around too much as they made their slow way through the profusion of police cars and into the hoard of reporters.

"Just when prey-tell, dear cousin, did you visit sunny Kuwait." Ezra drawled from the back.

His voice was a study in diffidence, but Jim could hear the strain that laced it. Just like he had heard the slight catch in the man's breathing when Jim'd revealed that it was Blair who knew how to blow up a helicopter. Jim was glad that the other man had asked the question. He was afraid to take his eyes off the road; he might not be able to keep his hands on the steering wheel if he looked at Sandburg. And if he did take his hands off of the wheel, then he was fairly certain he would use them to shake information out of the concussed man.

"Oh, I was there during Desert Storm."

_He said that as if it made sense_. Jim mused to himself. "Chief, I've seen your records. You were never in the military."

"Indeed, Blair. While our mothers might perceive our respective careers as something of an embarrassment not to be spoken of, had you joined the armed forces Naomi would have made sure that the entire family knew of your betrayal of her beliefs. Quite likely we would still hear the echo of her screeching."

"Okay, Ezzie I can understand, but Jim, you knew I flew an Apache in Desert Storm. You were right there when I told Kincaid's pilot."

"Never. In. The. Military. Chief." Jim repeated succinctly.

"Never. Said. I. Was. Jim." Blair returned.

"Perhaps then, you might expand upon the details for MY elucidation." Jim could see that Ezra was no longer slumped in the back seat, but held tightly coiled; his eyes riveted on Blair's curls.

A quick flicker, and for a nanosecond their gaze met in the rear-view mirror. It was all that was needed for them to reach an understanding. Jim suspected from their interactions in the office that no matter how many blood relations Ezra had scattered hither and yon, there were very few that he considered family. And Blair was one of them. This, they would get to the bottom of.

"Do you want the long version, or the short one?" Blair asked.

"Just explain it, Sandburg!" Jim barked as they finally passed the park and got a glimpse of the downed Huey. It was still burning.

"Alright Jim, calm down. There's no need to blow a gasket." Blair sighed. "You knew I took a semester off after I got my Bachelor's right?"

Jim nodded, "They had you marked as on assignment. I figured it was an anthropology thing."

Blair continued. "Well, it was kind'a unplanned time off. I'd agreed to help one of the grad students with the research for his Master's thesis. He was writing on the interdependency of the nomadic tribes in the Middle East. He'd gone to undergraduate school with a couple of guys from the area, and had gotten permission for us to spend a couple of months during the summer traveling with one of the camel trains. We started in Bahrain at the end of June and were supposed to fly out of Kuwait City at the end of the first week of August. We made it as far as Al Jahra. Then the Republican Guard swooped in.

"Only about half of the tribe made it out. Michael…didn't. Adil and I got picked up by a group of…mercenaries…that patrol the oil fields. It's a big group that operates pretty much in secret, but is beholden to none of the countries. It's functions more like a hired security force; been around since the days of the Silk Road. A country contacts the…President. If they can pay- and let's face it, if they have oil fields, they can- then he sends a detachment to set up a base near the fields.

"Anyway, they had a Huey and a couple of Apaches. They lost one of their Apache pilots in the invasion, so when they realized how quickly I learned, the other pilot taught me how to fly it. Had to keep 'em low over the gulf, there wasn't much open desert by mid-October. Too many soldiers in the way."

"And just what was it, may Ah ask, were you doing with this attack chopper, cousin?"

"Oh relax Ezzie. We weren't part of the war. It's not what the…mercenaries were hired for. We actually lay pretty low during the bulk of the occupation. Hussein wasn't the one who had a contract with the…corporate president after all. It wasn't until his forces were on the retreat that we got involved. Then the Apaches came in quite handy at putting out the oilrig fires.

"It was all over by February. Adil stayed with the mercs. I came back to school and only had a couple weeks worth of classes to make up for the new semester. They gave Michael his Master's Degree posthumously and life went on."

Since the southerner seemed at a loss for words Jim continued the inquisition. "Why haven't I heard about this 'mercenary security force'?"

"Like I said Jim, they operate in secret. From what I could tell, not even the Kuwait government knew where they were based. They're not politick Jim. They don't engage in international disputes. The war had nothing to do with them. They were just there to protect the oil field for the Emir who had hired them. They weren't there to protect the fields for Kuwait. So they waited. When Hussein started damaging the oilrigs, then they took action like they were paid to.

"They have bases strewn all around the Middle East, man. And just like any military personnel they can be sent to any of them. Not even all of the mercs, and NO ONE out side of them, knows where the main base is. It's a secret they've kept since before they started hiring themselves out as protection to the silk caravans. Jeez Jim, they're still run just like they were when the Silk Road was still operational. Most people, even in the Middle East, don't even know that they exist at all.

And I can't believe that you thought I'd lied, man! I mean, come on Jim. You know me better than that."

"Oh do I, Lieutenant Sandburg of the Narcotics Division?" Jim drawled from his seat, still following the ambulance through tight city turns.

"What Jim? That wasn't really a lie. I was a teaching fellow. That's roughly equivalent to a Lieutenant. Different institution; same rank. And as a TF part of my job was to report any students that I thought were abusing drugs. See all perfectly logical."

"Chief, that's only logical in the Sandburg Zone! To the rest of us it's a complete muddle. How the hell am I supposed to take something like that and get that you really meant it when you said that you flew Apaches in Desert Storm despite the fact that you had never been in the military?"

"So you assumed that I had LIED to you?"

"No Chief! I assumed that you had lied to Kincaid. If I had thought that you lied to ME, then I'd never go through a door with you. As it is there's no one I'd rather have at my back in a crisis."

Silence descended.

Then, "We're not going to make it to the seminar are we?"

Jim smiled slightly and accepted the change in subject. His partner knew him well enough to take his statement for the compliment it was. "Not a chance in Hell, Darwin."

"Gentlemen, Ah do believe that we have arrived at our destination." Ezra's voice was boredom personified.

In response Jim glanced around and noticed that they had pulled into the emergency entrance to the hospital. Jim reacted by slowing so that the attendants would have enough room to unload Chris and Vin from the back of the Ambulance.

"Alright! All walking wounded out of the car so I can go park." Jim joked.

He waited while they maneuvered themselves onto the pavement. Then called out, "Chief! I'll be there in a bit with your medical file."

Blair leaned back down, "You have my medical files?"

"Yep." Jim retorted, "They're in my suitcase. Just like I know you have mine in your backpack."

The partners shared a conspiratorial smile before Blair closed the door and Jim drove off.

* * *

Ezra waited outside the Emergency doors while Blair and JD were rolled in. Blair had played Jim very well there at the end of their…discussion. He had noticed that his cousin had been very careful in choosing some of his words during his story. But when Jim had asked a direct question about the…mercenaries Blair had changed the subject quickly. Turning the conversation to Jim's belief that he had lied. Jim probably didn't even know that Blair had choreographed it. But Ezra himself was skilled at obfuscation, and his skills were indicating that Blair knew something about this group of mercenaries that he didn't want anyone to know he knew.

He joined Nathan and Josiah as they marched into sight from the parking lot.

"Ezra why the Hell are you still out here?" Came the expected reprimand from the team medic.

"Both Vin and JD will require the use of an x-ray machine and have injuries of a more serious nature than myself. It seemed only gentlemanly to allow them first access. And Blair mentioned some old Middle Eastern history during the drive over here, but Ah'm afraid it wasn't very coherent to me. Ah was hoping Mr. Sanchez could shed some light on it."

"Not coherent?" Nathan sounded worried.

"Ah do believe that his partner is bringing his medical records as we speak." Ezra informed him.

With a little nod Nathan hurried on ahead.

"Well Brother. Now that you have successfully gotten us alone might I inquire as to the story you wish me to illuminate?" Josiah ambled beside him as they walked sedately to the doors.

"It is just that ma cousin mentioned an old tale from the Middle East about a corporation of mercenaries that protected traders who traveled the Silk Road. It seemed far fetched that there might have been someone so modern thinking as to have set up a corporation during such a barbaric period." Ez explained.

Josiah frowned and paused outside the hospital. "Most mercenaries back then were disorganized. I can only think of one story where a group of them worked for a single man. The King of Thieves was said to have set up an entire city out in the desert somewhere. No one from outside the City of Thieves, as it came to be called, was allowed to know its location; anyone who discovered it either had to stay or be killed. I'm not sure I would call their actions that of a modern corporation. It was more like a mob protection racket."

"Oh?" Ezra prompted as Jim and Buck passed them and went to find their partners. And yes Ezra noticed the THICK folder that Jim carried.

"The thieves would hire themselves out as mercenaries to the caravans at three of four times the going rate. However if you hired a group from the City of Thieves, then you didn't have to worry about the King of Thieves sending a group of marauders after your caravan. If you didn't hire them, then you stood to lose your entire inventory, and possibly your life. It's said he became quite rich."

"But what, Ah wonder, kept some intrepid merchant from simply killing the King and having done with it. Protection rackets are much like blackmail, the only way to stop them is at the head."

"That, brother, is simple. The only thing guarded as zealously as the location of the city, was the identity of its king." Josiah studied the uncharacteristically disheveled southern gentleman.

"Ah, it makes more sense now. Blair mentioned that the…protection racket, ran for quite some time. That there was no one who knew either the location of the city or the identity of its King would account for its prosperity. Ah must admire his caution."

Nathan appeared at the automatic doors, "Ezra, get in here and get signed in!"

"Of course, Mr. Jackson. Ah am, as you can see, hardly in a fit state to leave with out having been seen by someone in the medical field." Ezra motioned to his impaired arm as he stepped inside and let Nathan lead him to the registration desk for the out patient forms.

All the while Ezra wondered about what Blair had and HADN'T said. He had stated that no one knew where the main base was. Blair had said that the Emir contacted the…King, but he didn't say that Emir would meet with him. He also didn't say that the king's identity was unknown to all but the mercs. Adil who had been with Blair, wouldn't have known where the main base was either, but he had stayed with the mercenaries anyway. Even though, by Blair's own admission, about half his tribe was still alive and would need his help. Add that they still ran things the same as when they were…protecting…the silk caravans…

It left Ezra wondering just when his cousin had met the modern-day King of Thieves.

* * *

Inside the hospital Blair had been taken for a CT scan and Chris was already in surgery. Vin had passed on Chris's silent request for information before being wheeled off to x-ray. So JD, with Buck at his side, waited his turn with his laptop propped against the arm of his wheelchair, hooked into the hospital WI-FI system. A quick search on the Cascade detectives revealed a plethora of information. JD was deep into it when Vin converged with Nathan and Ezra at the desk.

The youngest of the team quickly waved over the oldest when he came through the doors.

"Is there something that I might help you with, Brother JD? Brother Buck?" Josiah asked as he crouched next to the disabled man.

"Yeah J'siah. There's something strange with those two Cascade cops. They-" He broke off when he spotted a nurse headed resolutely in his direction. "Dang, They're already comin' for me. Look 'Siah, Read these articles, and then there's a NEWS clip to watch. We'll talk when I get back." JD shifted the computer over to Josiah as the nurse pushed him away for his own x-rays.

Vin, Nathan, Buck, Ezra, and Josiah huddled around JD's computer analyzing the information displayed on it.

* * *

Jim was in an exam room arguing with Blair. "Look chief. Your head got rattled more than usual this time, they just want you to stay the night so they can keep an eye on you."

"Yeah, I know Jim, but the treatment for a moderate concussion is pretty much the same as the treatment for a mild one. Other than painkillers and anti-inflammatory pills it's just observation. The CT scan showed that there's no hemorrhage. My brain's just a little more bruised than normal. And we both know that you can keep a closer EYE on me than any hospital. Especially one that's about to be inundated with critical patients." Blair moved in for the kill. "And this isn't Cascade, they probably won't let you stay past the end of visiting hours." He would not be staying here. He watched his Sentinel weigh the options, and knew the exact moment that he had won.

"Alright, Darwin, you win. I'll get a nurse to send in some AMA papers, and then I'm headed over to the pharmacy to get your prescriptions filled. Don't. Go. Anywhere." Jim drilled Sandburg to his seat with his glare before turning and waving down a disapproving nurse to find the needed forms.

He was midway to the pharmacy when familiar sounds caught his attention.

_"-my dissertation is-" DAMN! _

Unashamedly Jim listened in to what was happening in the other wing of the building. It sounded like JD had just been brought back.

"It's not broken?" The medic Nathan asked.

"Naw. Doctors don't even think anything's torn. Just wrenched is all. Hav'ta stay off it for a day or two." The kid replied. "What do ya think about all that?" Jim could just see the kid pointing at the laptop Buck had brought in for him.

"It is certainly interesting viewing, Mr. Dunne." Blair's cousin was there too.

"The legends that his supposed dissertation seem to be based off of are obscure at best, but I could make some calls. See what my colleagues think of them." The big guy that had helped them free the AD had colleagues that might know about the Burton stories? That might not go well if he mentioned Blair's name. Who knew what academics would remember, even several years after the fact?

"I don't think tha's gonna be necessary." Tanner's drawl interrupted.

"But Vin." The kid seemed appalled, "He's a fraud, and the PD hired him anyway. What if he's crooked or som'thin'."

"Hey Kid, think about it." Jim stopped himself from storming over there when Wilmington spoke. "He went on national TV and admitted to being a fraud, and then the Cascade PD hired him. No PD would do that, and no Chief of Police would allow it, unless…they knew something the rest of us didn't."

"The police department would not hire a fraud, but they did hire Blair Sandburg. Ergo, perhaps he is not as much of a fraud as he claimed to be." Sanchez again.

"But that's…wow. It's kind'a creepy actually. I mean…What if Ellison's listening to us right now?" The kid did sound a little spooked.

"Hey kid, you ever hear of the don't ask don't tell policy?"

"Mr. Wilmington, Ah do not believe that this is the particular situation that that singular policy was devised to-"

Jim quit listening as Ezra upbraided the explosives expert.

_Well, what the hell? _Jim could swear that he was the LEAST hidden secret since Superman's alternate identity. ALL of major crimes knew now, as well as the Chief of Police. MOST of the rest of the department suspected, including forensics. Really, at this point, what could adding a couple of Feds to list hurt?

With a muttered invocation Jim stalked around uneasy nurses and continued on his way to the pharmacy. Simon was REALLY going to love hearing about this one.

* * *

The story of the City of Thieves and its king seems to be a bit of common lore about the Middle East. I've run into it in a couple of period romance novels, and a sci-fi novel. Plus I seem to remember my non-western civ teacher mentioning it. I don't' think ANYONE knows whether or not it's true.

Al Jahra is a city West of Kuwait City, and it was occupied by the Republican guard following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait on Aug. 2 1990. I have NO idea if camel trains belonging to the nomadic tribes really do travel from Bahrain to Kuwait, but it seems plausible.

AMA – Against Medical Advice

I own no copyrights, so anything mentioned in this story that has been (e.g. superman) I DO NOT OWN.


	4. Chapter 4

Okay there are many of you who need thanked. Here we are months after my last update, and I was still getting reviews. That was a good thing. It kept me coming back to fight with a scruffy Texan. He won. I apparently can't write Tanner if my life depends on it. So the entire section that I had written from his point of view had to be thrown out and redone from Sandburg's perspective. Once I got that done the rest of the chapter just fell into my lap.

* * *

Chris let out a silent breath from his wheelchair as Ezra was escorted back. His team…plus two…was back together. Ezra was in a cast and a sling, Vin had cracked a few ribs, JD had wrenched a knee, he had fourteen stitches in his leg, and the curly-haired detective had a moderate concussion. All things considered they had gotten off lightly. His team had anyway. They hadn't heard much from the site yet, but word was team six got hit hard, and team five wasn't much better.

He had to suppress a laugh, now really wasn't the time, as Ezra stormed across the waiting room slapping a stack of paperwork against his thigh with every other step.

"Mistah Tanner!" The southern gentleman began in a tone that was anything but gentle. "One would hope you would be conversant with the finer points of hospital sojourns by now. One is not truly released into their own recognizance until they have signed the appropriate documentation!"

"Yep" The Texan drawled from behind Chris where he was manning the wheelchair. "Ah am conversant with the procedure, and if'n I'd stayed they'd of made me ride about in one of these i'fernal contraptions. 'Sides it's not like I's ever actually make it outta the doors without sign'n the damn paperwork."

"All right. Enough, let's go home. Half of us are high as kites on painkillers, and the rest of us are exhausted. Homeland Security or the FBI can take our statements tomorrow after we've recovered."

"Umm, about that…"

Chris looked over at the two cops. Jim appeared to be holding Blair up with one hand on the scruff of his neck. And Blair seemed to be quite happy to let him. In fact as everybody focused on him, he seemed to lean into the bigger man just a fraction more.

"Well," he continued, " we were supposed to be going to that conference at Colorado Springs…sooo…Do any of you know a good hotel in the area?"

The kid had the wide-eyed innocent look down to an art. It was a look not even Ezra could pull off well.

"Tell you what Detective Sandburg. You and Ellison do me a favor and y'all can stay at my place for the night. I can't offer you much, just a couple of sleeping bags and a blow-up mattress…" _Tanner, I heard that snort…and so did Ellison. Standish I saw you roll you eyes, and if you think I'm letting _you're_ cousin roam about the streets of Denver without team seven supervision your out of your mind. Good God why doesn't that kid just where a collar with Rover embroidered on it? _"Tanner's pretty messed up, and the only cars we have with us ride like meat wagons. Think he can ride in your rental? He knows the way to the ranch."

Hah! Now the eyes are being turned on Ellison. Is that kid really older than JD? He should be about the same age as Ezra, so that would put him in his late twenties or early thirties. Nobody that old should be able to play off of his eyes _that_ well.

"That's fine. Gives Tanner and I a chance to catch up." Ellison it seems doesn't bother to try looking innocent. That's okay, I respect a good glare. But, he knows what I'm up to, and is willing to let me have my way…Tells me he's used to his partner getting into trouble and will take whatever help he can to keep him out of it. God help us; Tanner, JD, and _two_ Standish's in one state…We're lucky all we lost was a floor of the federal building.

Then time suspended as doctors rushed a supine form swathed in bloody bandages through the emergency doors and straight into the surgery rooms.

"That was Lexi, team six's secretary." JD sounded a little sick.

_Maybe_, Chris mused, _luck wasn't with us quite so much after all_.

* * *

"I'm surprised." Sandburg said as they started out of the parking lot.

"'Bout what?" Vin said from the where he was buckled into the back seat.

"That Ezra rode in with us. It would have been more advantageous if he had ridden with Nathan and Josiah from the start. Right? That way he could have given them enough background information to profile at least me."

"You're his cousin, he was worried." Vin stated.

"Yeah…It's just nice that he's finally found somewhere that he doesn't feel like he always has to be useful. That's all."

"Ya' wan'na explain that, Chief?"

"It's just that for all we were raised similarly…Naomi taught me to be helpful, and Maude taught Ezzie to be useful. It's quite a difference, Jim. That's all." That didn't seem to help much.

Okay, how to explain the difference to two military types. This was something Ezzie's team needed to understand about him if they ever wanted to understand _him_.

"Alright, look at it this way. Your dominant hand is necessary. If you lost it, then many everyday things wold become nearly impossible to do. It would be a debilitating injury right?" When both confirmed with a nod he continued "Your off hand is useful. Loosing it won't stop you from getting around in daily life, but it would make a lot of things in that life more difficult. A helping hand would be a third hand, or a second set of hands. Having them or not doesn't effect your _ability_ to do the chores and whatnot of life, but they can help you do them faster. Naomi taught me to be a set of helping hands. I didn't infringe on a household's routines other than to help get things done faster. Maude however taught Ezzie to find the chores that weren't getting done at all and to do them. It showed how useful he was to have around so that they would always want him back. The only one he wasn't useful to was Maude. Never-mind that she had decided to have a kid, she always made it come across as Ezra's fault if one of her beau's couldn't handle being a ready-made father.

Hey Jim, not to like radically change the subject or anything, but speaking of parental figures and all…Simon's bound to be waiting for us to check in, and an attack on a federal building will have made breaking news by now, even in Cascade…"

"Right, Simon…You know I'm driving maybe you should…"

"But, Jim, I'm injured." He whined slouching several more inches in to the passenger seat looking dejected and miserable.

"Right Sandburg." Jim huffed, but he was already pulling out his cell phone and flipping it open. "Tanner, after this call we need to talk about somebody named MacGillan."

Jim thought rather hard before making a judgement call and held the cell a very careful three inches from his ear. He snickered at his partner's amusement and rolled his eyes. It was good to see him making fun of his own senses. Sometimes Sandburg despaired of ever getting him to accept them as normal. The outside edge of normal maybe, but entirely natural anyway. He hadn't even thought of Tanner in the back seat until the man chuckled. The sniper could be absolutely silent when he wanted to be. It made Sandburg wonder how well Jim heard him even as he sent a distraught glance the other detective's way.

But Jim headed off the incipient panic attack while watching Vin in the mirror. "It's alright, Chief. They found a copy of your press conference on the Net. And Josiah apparently knows something about the Burton stories. I'm not happy about it, but at least I know they've got a better grasp of logic than most defense attorneys do."

Tanner burst into laughter. Cringing as his ribs protested. "Ahm jest gonna' tell JD I explained all'a this durin' the drive…Otherwise he's gonna be more paranoid than a cat in a room full'a rockers." The two ex-military men shared an amused glance before Simon answered the phone.

After that every one was busy for a bit. the cuocussed detective was damning globilization in general; once something was on the net people around the world could watch it, and getting it taken off was impossible. The more fuss you made over it the more copies would pop up. Jim was trying to placate the Captain. Simon had a booming voice; both Sandburg and Tanner could hear some of what he said. It caused Jim to grimace and hold the phone even farther away.

Tanner seemed to be having problems sitting upright. Blair had had cracked ribs before, and slouching was the definition of hell on earth. But Vin also seemed to be thinking about what Jim had said, and he obviously didn't like the implication.

Blair tried to tune out Jim's report to Simon as he watched Agent Vin Tanner. Judging by Tanner's reaction he knew something about somebody named MacGillan. And the man was bad news.

Ellison let out a breath and hung up. "He's not happy, but he understands that we'll be missing the conference. Apparently, this disaster is so far beyond what anyone expected that nobody even won the betting pool. Now Tanner, about this MacGillan."

"MacGillan is on the alphabet soup's list of ten most wanted almost unanimously. I don't think Fish and Wildlife has anythin' against him, but they probably have unsolved cases that he _should_ be charged with. Why do you want to know 'bout him."

Ellison shifted uncertainly and ground his teeth. "What I'm about to say stays out of any and all official reports."

Sandburg felt like he was at a tennis match as he looked from one man to the other. Neither of them spared him a glance; just made some major eye contact via the rearview mirror. He didn't begin breathing again until the agent nodded in acquiescence. The last thing they needed was for the government and consequently the criminal element to start taking Ellison's senses seriously again.

"Iroquois 'copters sound different than the commercial helicopters that the press can buy, and different from the standard police 'copters too. I heard it coming, but it took me awhile to place it. Denver is not my territory. I don't know the sounds of this city: what should be there and what shouldn't. That makes it more difficult to classify danger. But, once I identified it…I knew it shouldn't be there. No way should a military transport chopper be flying that low over a city. Hell, much lower and they would've been flying through the city." He kept his eyes very steadily on the road in front of us, following close behind Josiah's station wagon. "I…listened into the cockpit. The guy flying told the gunner something about MacGillan killing them if they messed up."

Inquisitive blue eyes watched as the sniper's own widened in shock before narrowing into rage filled slivers. Whoever this criminal was, the ATF had it out for him in a big way. "That means something more to you than it does to us. I mean we get that he's a major bad guy, but you seem to know something more."

"He's a traitor." It came out more as a hiss than actual speaking. It took a couple of moderately deep breaths for the Texan to calm himself. Looked like the outburst had pained him. So he sat now cradling his ribs like a mother does a new born. Blair was just glad he hadn't yelled. Jim's driving was bad enough on a good day there was no call to complicate it by deafening him. "He used to be Dept. of Defense. Now he runs security for whoever he's told to."

"Told too?" Ellison questioned from behind the wheel as we turned onto a rural road still part of the caravan behind Larabee's truck.

"N'body's got much." Vin continued. "MacGillan stays in Mexico where we cain't reach him. He runs what amounts to a black ops squad that services the Who's Who of Global Arms Trafficking…What we do have is five different wire taps from three American contacts of his where he states that somebody he calls Rogue wants somethin' done. And one where he warns that Rogue was not pleased. That man and one of his Lieutenants were found dead a week later. The Lieutenant was an undercover DEA agent trying to track where a cocaine lord was getting his security. That's how the tap got set to begin with. Up until that conversation all contact had been with the Proft syndicate. Nobody had any idea that MacGillan and Rogue were even involved."

"So who's Rogue?" Sandburg queried.

"Good question, Kid. Nobody knows 'cept MacGillan. Those taps are all we've got on Rogue. His file is blank of all data: no picture, no voiceprint, no fingerprints. All we've got is that MacGillan's his front man. Somebody in the INS tagged MacGillan's mercs as Rogue's Delta Squad. Somehow the name got a bit distorted and stuck. If word gets out that it was Delta Rogue that hit the federal building…All hell's gonna' break loose."

* * *

Josiah settled back on the sofa and watched. He watched Vin shift uncomfortably from his nest of pillows in one of Chris's leather recliners. He watched JD in the other recliner with his foot propped up peck at his laptop as he tried to coax information on MacGillan, and by extension Rogue, out of the internet, and quite possibly a few sites he wasn't technically supposed to have access to. He watched Nathan bounce between them figuring out their medication schedules. Buck was in the barn searching for the air mattress. Ezra was at the kitchen table nibbling at some toast. It was hard to believe they'd only made it to lunchtime, the day seemed as if it should be further along. Chris was making omelets and talking to Ryan Kelly of Team Eight. They'd been called off of surveillance to help sort through the wreckage of the offices. Sounded like Kelly didn't need anything more than Chris's word to hunt down a dossier on MacGillan.

It said something about the man that nobody seemed to question how MacGillan could have pulled an attack like this off. Hell, if it weren't for Ellison's ears they might be falling for Homeland Security's paranoia that this was a terrorist attack, and not the surgical strike that they now knew it to be.

And he watched while Ellison paced his partner into a corner and then began to prowl about the room checking windows and doors as if another attack was imminent. Thank the Good Lord the man had been a medic, because he didn't seem inclined to let Nathan or anyone else near his partner. Sandburg, for his part, sat slouched in a computer chair holding his head as he studied Ellison with narrowed eyes and a perplexed frown. With a slight tightening of his lips he rolled his chair a few inches to the left.

Josiah paused when Ellison altered his circuit through the room and crossed to the picture window effectively caging his partner in the corner. He and Sandburg shared a look acknowledging that they had both seen the shift.

He paused a moment to consider the anthropologically trained cop. Josiah rarely got to work with anyone trained to observe the way he had been. Cops and military people were trained to see everything in terms of threat/non-threat with very little in-between. Psychologists and anthropologists were trained to observe actions without bias so that they could ascertain the thought behind the action and could then maneuver to keep a possible threat from becoming a real threat. If you thought about it the difference between psychology and anthropology was the very similar to the difference between micro- and macroeconomics. The same skills and teachings applied, but one dealt with the individual and the other dealt with the whole.

And in his professional opinion the individual Blair Sandburg was just about fed up with being in the corner. Josiah leaned forward resting his elbows on his knees and prepared to observe how one handled a sentinel in a snit.

Sandburg sat back in his chair with a sigh and asked in exasperation "All right Jim, what has you going all alpha caveman overprotective on me?"

Jim turned to look at the younger man consternation written clearly across his face. "Chief, we were shot at by a helicopter today. I also got to find out you have a cousin in the ATF, and that you really did fly an apache in Desert Storm! And you, the trained observer, has to ask what has me upset?"

"All of which happened before we got to the hospital," The anthropologist pointed out calmly. "Where you were fine. And before the car ride here, again where you were fine. It wasn't until we got here that you decided I shouldn't be allowed near any door, window, or crack in the wall that an anorexic kitten would have trouble squeezing through. So I'll ask again. What is it about being here that has pushed your blessed protector button?"

To say Josiah Sanchez was surprised would be an understatement. Obviously at some point today has powers of observation had failed him. A minute ago had you asked him which member of team seven Blair Sandburg most reminded him of the answer would have been JD Dunne, unequivocally. Hyper, comfortable enough to mouth off to Satan himself, and far more likely to be shy and quiet in the presence of the Lord. To have that image shattered by this calmly determined adult persona threw him. Suddenly, Sandburg didn't remind him of JD at all, but more of Chris questioning a hysterical witness. A glance around proved that the tableau on front of him was quite abruptly the center of attention for the entire house.

"Jim enough." Sandburg stated in that same low calm voice, as Ellison began to turn away. "Touch and taste are the least likely senses to trigger this. So ignore them. Filter out their input. Now you don't know enough about this area for you to see something subtle and have your subconscious recognize it as a danger. So ignore everything you've seen. Focus on sound and smell. Whatever it is that's set you off _is_ something you know, something that you've encountered before. So discard anything that you don't recognize. If it was familiar you'd have already placed it, so focus on the things that you recognize but are unusual."

Everything in the ranch house had gone still waiting for the scene to play out.

Then Jim Ellison wrinkled his nose and sneezed. Eyes opening to glare at a chili pepper sitting on the coffee table. "It's just a damn pepper, chief. Same type that we used to track down Brackett at that Thai restaurant."

"You mean that restaurant that we tracked him to where he was waiting for us?" Sandburg questioned staring at the pepper suspiciously. "Man that is so not cool. I don't like that thought at all."

"You mean all this drama is over a chili pepper?" JD laughed looking around his computer screen at the rest of them.

Josiah wasn't so ready to laugh about it yet. That was a mighty strange place to keep something you cook with. And Chris was checking windows as he approached the table like it held a snake not a fruit.

"Come on Jim, it's not just the chili. There's got to be something else."

"Why, Chief? Why does there have to be something else? Why can't it just be that the smell of the pepper reminded me of Brackett and made me jumpy?"

"Because Jim, you don't freak out every time we have Thai food. I guarantee you that the smell of this kind of pepper is all over the Thai restaurants we've been to and none of them have caused you to go this paranoid on me." Sandburg argued back.

"I don't know anything about how crazy you go at restaurants Ellison," Chris growled, "but I do know that I didn't buy that pepper or put it there. So if you know something I don't then I would thank you to share."

Josiah nodded as the room went quiet again. "Brother Jim, if the pepper was a trigger, or was left as a warning then whatever else you noticed likely connects to this Brackett character."

Blair nodded gratefully in his direction. "He's right Jim search your other senses to pinpoint the things that remind you of Brackett. It could be anything, a sight, a sound, I doubt it would be a smell because the pepper would have overwhelmed that sense."

They all watched as Ellison glanced around then closed his eyes. He took a slow deep breath through his mouth, tasting the air. Then cocked his head to the side making minute adjustments to zero in on some sound. Then he opened his eyes and looked around again.

He turned to Chris. "You don't like digital clocks do you?"

Josiah had never noticed it before, but the DVD player, the microwave, and the oven, all items that were capable of showing a digital readout of the time were set to be blank. Strange he thought as he looked to Chris for an explanation.

"Gets dark outside this far from the city. Real dark. All you need is light from one digital clock to give away your position to anyone outside."

Great now Josiah and by the looks of it JD were going to be worried about their electronics giving their locations away to the next set of kidnappers or assassins that came after them. Unfortunately team seven seemed to attract that sort of attention.

Jim nodded and started across the room to the short hallway that led to the bedrooms. "Stay here Chief." He called over his shoulder.

"Like hell, Big Guy." Sandburg called back, already moving to follow.

"JD, Tanner, Ezra you _will_ stay here." Chris ordered before he and Josiah followed the retreating detectives down the hall to the master bedroom. Chris glared and ground his teeth as Ellison walked in and paused at the foot of the bed. "Well, what is it?"

Josiah had to choke back a laugh as Ellison waved him off. Chris was about to explode all over someone and if Jim couldn't give him another target to focus on then he was going to get it right in the jaw.

Without warning Ellison dropped to his knees in front of Sarah's hope chest. He ran his fingers along the seam once then popped the lid slightly and began running his hands over the slit.

Chris stiffened even more and moved furiously into the room just as Ellison threw back the lid.

The entire room paused to catch its breath.

"Dear lord in heaven." Josiah murmured staring.

Chris pulled him from his trance. "'Siah, go get Buck. Everybody else, get out of the house."

A very good idea Josiah thought as he turned to leave. Because there, nestled in with Sarah's fine china and her grandmother's hand made quilt was a good half-pound of C4 and a digital timer merrily counting down to its detonation.

* * *

I don't know what it says about me, but I can climb into Blair and Ezra's heads just fine. Nathan and Josiah are a bit trickier, but still fairly easy. I can even manage Chris and Jim for short periods of time. But Buck and Vin are beyond me. There is something about those two that causes my brain to lock up and blink at me like I asked it to do the unthinkable. O.o

Hopefully the next chapter will come out faster than this one…

thanks to chrism1976 for pointing out how confusing the point of view was in the car! I hope this got it fixed!

In case anyone was wondering that is the section that Vin turned my brain to mush over, so I'm not surprised that it needed some more help.


	5. Chapter 5

Okay, I introduce a new character in this chapter. I don't usually like that, but I needed someone for Buck to collaborate with. And it has kind'a irked me that team eight was never really filled out consistently. They show up in several fics, but the only one who has any background and stays the same is Ryan Kelly, so I added a member to his team and mention another.

* * *

Chris closed his cell phone and stood rigidly in the doorway of his bedroom in case Buck needed a second set of hands. He watched as Buck stooped at the foot of the bed with the toolkit from his venerable truck. The normally suave man was deadly serious as he studied the device in front of him.

Thankfully they had the time to analyze it carefully. It wasn't set to go off until early morning. His stance tightened as Buck reached for the wire cutters from the toolbox and he thought on what Ellison had said before he cleared the room.

As Jim and Buck had stood staring down at the mechanism he had described the previous bomb that Brackett had fabricated. He then stated that this one didn't seem nearly as sophisticated as that one had. Buck had agreed that this one didn't appear to need a sequence of accurately disabled shutdown wires, but could have that nasty five-second trap so he was glad to have time to figure it out properly before cutting anything.

Suddenly Buck deflated and sat back on his heels letting out a deep breath before standing up. "Well, that was kind of a let down."

Chris entered the room and looked at the digital display of the clock as Buck stepped back. 16 seconds: where before they had had nearly 14 hours.

Buck shrugged at his look. "He worked in two ways to blow the charge: the detonator, and a short in the clock itself. Gave me 20 seconds to cut the second wire after the detonator was isolated. Nifty little trick," he said with a grin, "but not nearly to the standards of the one Ellison had to handle. It feels like he wasn't really trying. Maybe he's on our side?"

"I think making assumptions about him is a bad idea. He certainly wasn't on Ellison and Sandburg's side when he was threatening Cascade with the Ebola virus. That the pepper was left as a calling card to take responsibility for the bomb is just as likely as it being left as a warning. He couldn't have known Ellison would be here and it wouldn't have set anyone else off." Chris reminded him darkly.

Chris checked that Nathan and Josiah had let the horses out to pasture where they would be further from the blast zone as he limped after Buck towards where the Chevy was waiting for them.

They could hear Blair as they trundled down the driveway to where the others had pulled their cars into the field, clearing the road for the bomb squad.

"Come on man, Brackett is ex-CIA. He's one of the guys that knows where the bodies are buried and is trained to figure out who put them there and why. Of course he isn't in jail! They can't afford for him to be in jail. He was quiet for so long that I figured somebody had arranged an accident for him. I'm a peace lovin' guy and all, but I'm kind'a disappointed they didn't."

"Darwin." Jim interrupted in warning.

"No Jim, I know. You love this country, and so do I. But it's run by people, and people can be corrupted. Political gangs and bullies can be just as deadly as their street counterparts, man, except they've got more to lose."

Buck and Chris shared a look. They knew from previous dealings with political corruption that Sandburg was probably right. After all, even with the evidence Mary Travis managed to gather about the former-Governor's financial dealings, he had still evaded persecution. And that was after they had stopped his assassin from getting to Mary. That anyone who might be able to pull strings like that appeared to be working with MacGillan for Rogue was a bad sign.

"Enough." Chris ordered as he pulled himself out of the truck. "However it is that Brackett is free and alive doesn't matter right now. What he's up to is. Ellison, I'm assuming we can get to his police record?"

"Yeah." The big cop returned on a sigh. "We won't get clearance to see his CIA file, but everything we managed to collect on him is in the Washington PD database. That can be accessed by any law enforcement agency. And it includes a profile by Jack Kelso."

"The retired agent that wrote the book about how the CIA operates? That'll be useful. All right, Ryan is going to meet us at the Saloon with the file on MacGillan; I'll have him bring the file on Brackett too. The bomb squad is on the way and when they finish here they're going to search each of your houses as well." Chris informed them.

"And the hospital."

"What?" Chris turned to look at Vin where he sat in the open back door of Jim's rental.

"Ellison said the bomb wasn't gonna go off until one-thirty, give or take. Think about it Cowboy. If any one of us had been admitted 'cause of our injuries, then all'a us would be at the hospital until the staff threw us out. That usu'lly happens some time after midnight. Then it's a little over a half-hour to get out to the ranch, more if'n yer' bein' careful 'cause you're drivin' injured 'round. Tha'd put us here right near one-thirty. 'Snot likely, but if'n they's don't want _no_ survivors, then they'd hit the hospital too."

"Right." Chris said even as he cringed inwardly at how well the opposition obviously knew them. "So, have Ryan pull Brackett's file along with MacGillan's, add the hospital to the bomb squad's list, and make a report about finding the bomb that in no way references Ellison's hearing. Anything else or is that it for the afternoon?"

He nodded when nobody said anything and he began to hear the faint sound of sirens in the distance. "Okay, I'll tell Ryan to be at the Saloon at three. They should be done with us here by then. Nathan call Rain and have her pack a bag. She's staying with us tonight."

* * *

Chris and Vin arrived at the corner his people had commandeered too late to hear what Buck had said to Inez, the pretty senorita that waited tables at J. Watson's, the popular watering hole known locally as the Saloon, but her response was quite loud.

With a saccharine smile and a saucy hip leaned against the table she purred, "Me alimentarían algo a los perros rabiosos, que pasar la noche en su compañía."

A nearby table of mestizo ranch hands seemed to find the statement hilarious and laughingly called out several things in Spanish that set Inez to grinning and winking at them as she went to refill her coffee carafe.

Chris tried to suppress his amusement as his oldest friend turned to him with a gleam in his eyes. "Did she just say she wanted to spend the night with me? Noche is Spanish for night. Right?"

"Noche may be Spanish for night," Nathan snorted over his beer, "but I think she called you a dog before that."

"My Spanish is sketchy at best," Blair piped up from his seat between Ezra and Ellison, "but I'm pretty sure 'perros rabiosos' means rabid dog."

This set the entire table to chuckling at the older agent. Who instantly jumped to his own defense, "Y'all are missing the point! When she's thinking of me, she's thinking of the _entire_ night."

This had most of the table doubled over as they laughed.

"Alright, enough." Chris said as he sat down next to Ryan Kelly. "Preliminary reports are back. Vin's place was clear, but the rest of our houses were compromised. They're still going over the hospital, but it appears to be clean."

"How about Travis's place?" JD asked after he washed down a mouthful of nachos with a swallow of his root beer.

"They're headed that way now." Chris told him. "There wasn't much priority with him in the hospital. He's not happy with the doctors for keeping him in for a broken leg. Says it's age discrimination; if he'd been a kid, they'd have thrown him out by now. Mary and his wife are both fussing over him, so he'll probably be ready to run out the doors tomorrow, cast or no cast."

Smiles were shared at the expense of their erstwhile commander while Chris and Vin's coffee arrived with a refill for their chips.

"Okay, that's where we stand now." Chris continued after Inez had left. He looked over at Ryan who had brought team eight's bomb expert with him. "What have you two got for us?"

* * *

Michael Lunacy liked to joke that his family got their name because they were all seatbelt and parachute testers, and that he had been looking for something a little safer when he started working with things that went boom. But the truth was that the complexity and variety of bombs had fascinated him ever since the Marine-training course had introduced him to them. Semper Fidelis was more than trained into him, it was bred into him; His father really had been a test pilot for the navy, and his grandfather had been a Tuskegee airman. His loyalty had transferred from the corps to team eight without question or reservation and to team seven by extension. The two teams may not be as close as brothers, but they definitely qualified as cousins. And so long as Wilmington kept himself to mild flirting with team eight's electronics "guy" then anybody messing with team seven was going to have to deal with their entire clan.

MacGillan had already made two mistakes today; he went after "the Magnificent Seven" without going after team eight too, and he missed. That his bombs had been discovered and were being disarmed was icing. And Michael had to admit; these were some cherry designs. He and Buck had been going over them for the last half-hour while the others caught the detectives up on MacGillan and Delta Rogue. The diagram of the bomb Ellison had had to contend with was by far the most complicated. The quick sketches Buck had made were second. The rest of the bombs found were simpler, even with the same 20 second delayed short that Buck had discovered, but they all showed a streamlined structure that exemplified elegance_. _There simply was no wasted effort: no useless parts, or redundant wiring.

_These bombs were designed to do precisely what they had done._ He thought to himself with a sinking feeling.

Michael had headed to Ezra's townhouse when the call to the bomb squad had gone out. By the time they had gone through the rest of Larabee's ranch he had handled the bombs at both Ezra's and Nathan's. It let him walk the DPD's bomb tech through his first one at Josiah's house. Then he had left to get his file together and meet with Ryan.

"Well," Ryan questioned from over his shoulder, "what's the verdict?"

"Larabee's was the focus, but…" Michael trailed off and met Buck's eyes when he looked up from his own papers. They shared a long look and a quick nod.

"But?" Chris questioned from his own seat.

Buck looked over from where he was holding his own sketch with notes and the diagram from the Cascade file. "But he wasn't really trying to kill us."

"Five bombs, so far, Big Dog? And he's not trying to kill us?"

"Nope."

"Explain."

Michael sighed as he and Wilmington shared another look. How do you compare the Sistine Chapel to a paint-by-numbers so that the blind can understand the difference?

"Everything we've dealt with today has been below the standard he set in Cascade." Buck tried.

"Simultaneous disconnects, the five second trap designed to panic the technician, the very physics of a bomb that would spread the virus enough to infect without incinerating it. This man can be a master bomb maker…when he wants to be." Michael added in support.

"And you're saying that today he didn't want to be?"

Michael turned his attention back to the papers and pictures spread out on the table around him as Buck answered Josiah. "I'm sayin' that he could'a made any of these nearly impossible to disarm. But other than the short in the clock…these are simple."

"Look Wilmington's right. The bomb at the ranch was more complicated than the rest. But, the ones that the bomb squad and I have had to deal with today? Once you know about the short in the clock the rest of their basic design can come straight off of the Internet, if you know where to look." Buck was nodding at him his normally smiling lips turned down in a grim line. "When you consider what he can do…"

"He _made_ these bombs to be defused." Buck finished.

"That actually coincides with what else he's done."

The entire posse turned to look at Blair where he sat with his partner going over the Rogue file.

* * *

Blair wondered for a bit if this was what it felt like to be in the circus. He was used to being the center of attention, he _had_ taught after all. But even the students who _had_ been interested in his lectures didn't exude as much _focus_ as any one member of this group did.

After a deep breath Blair tried to explain his conclusions, "I think he's setting up a double cross. It's the only thing that makes any sense when you consider all the coincidences and discrepancies in the attack today."

"I must say I feel that an attack helicopter makes a fairly direct statement, cousin."

"Coincidences and discrepancies? What's he sayin'? How come we always get stuck listenin' to them big words?"

"The pepper."

Blair focused on Josiah's statement as the rest of the group wound down. Thankfully it seemed that he and the profiler were on the same page. He nodded for Josiah to continue the thought.

The big man rested his head on his steepled fingers; narrow eyes over pursed lips as he considered the situation. "If the bomb had gone off, then the pepper would have been destroyed too. And there's no point in leaving a calling card if nobody's going to recognize it. Blair and Ellison are the only people that the pepper _could_ have meant anything to. So he had to have left the pepper for them."

"But how could he have known they'd be there? We didn't know they would be stayin' with us until we were gettin' ready t' leave the hospital."

"And that's the trick isn't it?" Blair asked Vin. "We wouldn't have been there if we hadn't been caught up in the attack. And it isn't like we were technically scheduled to be in the building. One phone call between Ben Chow and JD is hardly enough to say the visit was official. But a major computer problem and two detectives already scheduled to pass through Denver on their way to Colorado Springs?"

"Of course, it would be recommended that they take advantage of the opportunity presented to them to consult with one of the top computer experts that the government can lay claim to." Ezra interjected with a quirked eye-ridge and a fairly paternal smile for JD.

"Exactly," Blair confirmed with a smile. He glanced once at his partner, then locked eyes with Larabee's laser glare. "Two things about Lee Brackett: he studies his targets until he knows exactly how they'll react, and…He _knows _just how good Jim's 'attention-to-detail' is."

"He knew us well enough to know that there was no need to bother with Vin's apartment. His place is always the first one vacated when one of us is injured." Josiah added as the profiler fit pieces of a perfectionist's personality with the actions necessary to set up today's excitement.

Blair spoke directly to Chris now willing him to understand. "Think about it. The pepper shows that he knew Jim and I would be there. Jim's the one who noticed the chopper, and the one who found the bomb. Brackett is supposedly very good with computers. And if we're right, then he would have known when this attack was going to be…it takes awhile to coordinate something as drastic today's hit."

"You think _he_ hacked your system?" JD asked from the side, but Blair didn't look away from the team leader.

Chris had a contemplative look about him and his countenance was growing stormier by the second. "What you think is that someone is giving him orders. And that he's doing everything he can to see to it that those orders don't work out as well as his boss wants."

"I think he's smart, and he's taken the time to get to know you, and he knows us." Blair returned finally looking around the table at everybody else, "And that only an idiot thinks Lee Brackett works for anyone but himself."

"At least, not for long." Jim added.

"Well," Buck called jovially from the nearby table, "nobody ever said tha' criminal masterminds could'n be idiots on occasion."

"Indeed, isn't that why we usually catch them?" Nathan said as he raised his bottle in a small salute to the other members of his team. "By conning them into counting on _Ezra_ of all people?"

"Why Mr. Jackson, one would think that you didn't trust me." The undercover agent squawked.

"You forget Ez, I've played poker with you." The black man stated and sent team seven and the visiting members of team eight into a bout of snickering while the southerner sputtered indignantly.

Blair and Jim shared a look as they smiled at the camaraderie between the federal agents. They both settled back to enjoy the rest of the afternoon. Other than the dry weather, this was like being back home, out with Simon and the rest of major crimes.

Blair nodded to himself. Whoever this Rogue was, he had no idea just whom he was taking on this time. You really shouldn't mess with family. Especially when that family was armed, trained, and spread between two states.

* * *

Translations for those who don't speak Spanish (that includes me: thank God for BabelFish) and a brief history lesson:

What Inez really said - I would rather be fed to rabid dogs, than to spend the night in your company.

Mestizo – colloquial word used to describe anyone of Spanish/Mexican mixed with European and/or Native American ethnicity.

Semper Fidelis – always faithful - United States Marine Corps slogan; Usually shortened to Semper Fi

Tuskegee Airmen were the first African American pilots in the U.S. military. They were trained as an experiment in plane maintenance and piloting at the airfield in Tuskegee Alabama. Many went on to fly as the 332nd fighter group during WWII. They became one of the most respected fighter groups in the US military despite the fact that racism was still rampant and that most of their equipment was substandard.


End file.
